News, news, news! And more!

05Mar

Wow, another day goes by and there’s plenty more to tell you all about! 🙂

First off, do you want to try your hand at creating your own Fantasy (or SF, for that matter) book cover? I followed a link from The Old Bat’s Belfry to this site, read the instructions, and created my own book cover! 🙂 Okay, granted, it’s a bit crappy (butterflies for sails?) but it still looks cool, and the title, together with the cover, really does make the book look intriguing. 🙂 Anyway, here’s my effort:

The Power of Lodon

The author’s name? That’s my pen-name when I write the literary stuff. 😉

Here are the instructions:

CREATE YOUR DEBUT FANTASY BOOK COVER
1 – Go to “Behind the Name”. Hit “Generate a Name!” or click http://www.behindthename.com/random/
The first name you get is your author name.
2 – Go to “Fantasy Novel Title Generator”
or click http://nine.frenchboys.net/novel.php
This is the title of your book.
3 – Go to Photobucket and click on “surreal art” or click http://photobucket.com/images/surreal%20art/
Add the two numbers of your age together (ex. 2 + 7 = 9). Go to that page of results. The fourth picture, no matter what it is, is your cover.
4 – Use photoshop, Picnik, or similar to put it all together.
5 – Post it to your site along with this text.

Pretty easy, I have to admit, and quick, too! 🙂

Okay, next up: Wheel of Time News!

There is a widget available (which I cannot put on the blog) counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until A Memory of Light hits the shelves – in November. Now, now, don’t get too excited yet! Brandon Sanderson is working on rewrites for Harriet at the moment (for those who’s been living on another planet, Harriet is Robert Jordan’s widow and his long-time editor) and hopes to have them done by April (if I’m not mistaken); coupled with that, Brandon has time and again stated that this book will be a big, thick book, and that even his projected wordcount might get tossed out the window as he progresses. The book might even be split (I know, I’d like to devour it and finish it, too, without having to wait for part two, but hey, it’s not up to us), and the first part may hit shelves in November. Either way, I think the November date is a bit premature, considering the project and what Brandon has already said about working on it.

But if it does hit shelves in November, either Part One or the full book, you can be sure of one thing – in November, forget any other book hitting the shelves at the same time – The Wheel of Time will be the biggest news of the year! 🙂

I haven’t warmed up entirely yet to the new style of cover art, but it’s starting to look really cool – who is that on the cover, I wonder? 😉 Here’s the announcement on the official site, and if you want them, spoilers for Omen! 🙂

M.D. Thalmann, a novelist and freelance journalist with an affinity for satire and science fiction, lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife, children, and ornery cats, reads too much and sleeps too little.